


Moments of Weakness

by babel



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-28
Updated: 2011-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments of Weakness

"Do you ever get angry at them?"

Kira blinks at Bashir, finding herself surprised. Surprised at a question, of all things. An inane question, at that.

She decides that she's only surprised because she'd forgotten Bashir was eating lunch with her. He's been quieter recently -- or has he been quiet for years now? -- and she was distracted by the reports she'd just gotten in from Bajor.

"I don't mean _really_ angry," he adds when she says nothing. "Just. A little."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lies.

Bashir seems unfazed by the lie. No wonder he gets along with Cardassians so well. "We're the only two officers left. Who were officers at the beginning, anyway."

"Dax."

"Yes." He sips at his tea, as if giving himself a moment's pause. "But that's not quite the same."

"Why would I be angry?" She can hear the edge in her voice even as she tries to suppress it.

"I don't know."

"Then how could I?"

Bashir stirs his soup around in the bowl. "It was a stupid--"

"I have work to do," she interrupts, and she leaves without having touched her meal.

* * *

There was an accident in the cargo bay. Some unstable substances not marked as such exploded. Two people have succumbed to extensive burns. Another has severe brain damage and will likely not make it through the night.

Bashir rehearses the report in his mind, so that it will be crisp and clinical by the time he has to voice the words to Colonel Kira.

He doesn't know any of them. Not well. Not outside of physical exams and occasional glances on the Promenade. Reporting this sort of death should be only slightly short of routine. But lately...

"How's it going?"

He forces his expression into the kind-but-detached doctor's expression before he turns around. "Ensigns Fogg and Shoji are dead. I'm not optimistic about Major Hita." He pauses. "You're going to see the Shoji family, right?"

Ezri furrows her brow and nods. She doesn't seem to be concerned with letting her emotions show on her face. "I hate this part. At least Nerys comes with me."

"Tell them... I'm sorry I couldn't do more for him."

"Of course." She presses her lips together. "I hope Maria contacted her father before... They hadn't spoken in years."

He can feel her eyes on him, trying to spot any sign that her message is getting through, but he ignores it. He's not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed at the moment.

She's about to say something more, but Kira arrives and thankfully quiets her.

"What in the hell happened?"

"Insufficient labeling," Bashir answers. His voice sounds weary in his own ears. "It seems to have been an accident, but you'll have to ask security about that; they're looking into it. Ensigns Fogg and Shoji have died. Major Hita may have more brain damage than she can survive, but I can tell you for certain in the morning."

 _Yes, that sounded quite emotionally neutral. Good job, Doctor._

"Labels." Kira eyes are on Hita's unconscious body. There is a moment of sadness on her face before she straightens her back. "Let's go, Dax."

Bashir watches Kira go, thinking that she might be the only person left on the station who understands him.

But what does it matter? She doesn't even like him very much.

* * *

A moment after leaving the Shoji quarters, Kira doesn't remember the little girl's name anymore. But she will always remember her face, innocently stoic, as she learned that her world has just been cut in half. She remembers that conversation with her father and later _about_ her father. She remembers how it feels.

She felt it a third time not all that long ago.

Kira shakes her head, cutting that thought off at the pass. No. What that little girl is going through -- what she would be going through for the rest of her life starting today -- is a hell of a lot worst than an ended love affair.

"You did well," Dax says suddenly, startling Kira out of her thoughts.

"Not really."

Dax looks at her that way that counselors do, as if she can see clear through to the other side. "Yes, you did. You made eye contact. You didn't use euphemisms. You represented power and authority so that she could feel some stability. You did really well."

"I don't need the pep talk," Kira snaps, regretting to words as they come out. "But... Thanks."

Dax nods, chewing thoughtfully on her lip. She wants to say something more, but Kira isn't in the mood to hear it.

"I need to talk to security about the incident," she says brusquely. She turns into the nearest turbolift and hits the console.

She can see the worry on Dax's face as she slides out of view.

* * *

It's platinum, like his mother's. Set with five stones: two clear and three the same blue-green as her eyes. Quark is the only one who knows he has it because he'd (reluctantly) helped find the right gemstones.

That was a month ago.

He isn't sure why he got it. They don't even share quarters. They're both too busy for each other at the moment. And when they do have time, it's usually just enough for sex and sleep. Just sleep, sometimes.

He can't even tell if they're serious about each other, or if this is just another passing thing. Maybe if he'd _had_ a serious relationship in the past, he'd be able to make a diagnosis. But, no. His only serious feelings were... unresolved, at best.

Still, he's thinking of giving it to her tonight. Because he wants to. Or so that he can at least tell where they are. It's probably too early. But he's set the table, lit the candles, dimmed the lights, and now he waits.

The ring is burning in his breast pocket. Now and then, he tucks his hand under to feel his chest, make sure that the ring isn't somehow radioactive and that his flesh is still whole.

The door chimes. Bashir's stomach sinks. He checks his chest one more time before he stands up, puts on a smile, and lets her in.

* * *

When the transmission comes in from Earth to her personal comm, Kira smiles for the first time all day.

It isn't much. Just a short message and a finger-painting with "Love, Kirayoshi" at the bottom, written in the square lettering of an Engineer. She wants to answer it right away, but she can feel tears threatening already, and she knows that if she tries right now she'll gurgle her message as inarticulately as the infant she gave birth to.

Instead, she transfers the finger-painting to a digital frame and finds a special place to hang it. Near her bed, so that she can see it when she wakes up. She steps back from it and takes a deep breath.

After the Occupation ended, she was struck by the possibility of bringing a child into the world. Before it had seemed so hopeless. Why would she want to have a child when all they would know was hunger and grief? But on Deep Space Nine, which was no longer anything like the Terok Nor she remembered, childbirth had turned into such a joyous thing. Yes, it had always been a miracle and thank the Prophets and everything, but the accompanying sadness was gone.

Now, somehow, it has returned. Now, she feels a certainty threatening at the edges of her mind that she will never have a child of her own. Maybe it was what she found out about her mother and Dukat. Maybe it was having lost two fathers. Maybe it was having to see that familiar pain on a child's face.

The door chimes, interrupting her thoughts. Her first instinct is annoyance, but she realizes that she is happy to be interrupted. As long as it isn't more bad news.

 _There's no guarantee that it isn't,_ she reminds herself as she goes to open the door.

It's Bashir.

Her stomach clenches as she braces herself for the kind of thing that seems inevitable when a doctor shows up at someone's door in the middle of the night. But he looks strange, not like a doctor tonight... He's in civilian clothes -- which, somehow after knowing him for more than seven years, she isn't used to -- and he's holding a bottle of champagne.

"I'm sorry if I'm bothering you," he says. He sounds tired. "I, er... I needed to..."

His eyes twitch back and forth, as if he's trying to find the right words and failing. Finally, Kira allows her guard to drop enough to allow him entry. "Come in."

* * *

Bashir sits on the couch, not entirely sure why he's there or if he's welcome. He's been in Kira's quarters before, but not often. In fact, he can probably count the number of times on one hand. They're friends, but...

 _But not the type of friends who spend time together?_

He ignores the unwelcome thought and looks up at Kira. She's sitting on the opposite end of the couch, looking like a nervous cat who will either jump up and run or claw his arm off if he moves too suddenly.

"I was going to ask her to marry me," he says, the words coming out of his mouth before he can stop them.

Kira's muscles relax slightly. "Dax? Ezri?"

"Yes." Bashir smiles without any happiness at all. "Yes, I had planned to tonight."

"I... didn't realize you were there yet."

"We weren't. I mean, I didn't get the chance to ask."

Kira's visible nervousness has given way to visible confusion. Bashir plucks the ring out of his pocket and hands it to her. She turns it over in her palm. A tiny, irrational thrill of triumph goes through him when he notices her eyes widen with astonishment.

"I was going to ask at dinner. But when she came in, she said we needed to talk, and she sat down across from me. At the table, with the candles burning. And she said she didn't love me." He frowned. "I don't think she meant to blurt it out that way, but you know how she is."

Kira is quiet. She sets the ring down on the coffee table, across from the champagne that was supposed to be for celebration. Why had he presumed that Ezri would say yes?

"I'm sorry," Kira says, finally.

"Don't be," he says, still smiling that fake, emotionless smile. "I'm not really all that sad. I'm just... I think I'm getting used to this feeling."

Kira jerks back slightly, as if startled. Then, she furrows her brow into an expression that almost looks like anger, but not quite. Bashir almost wants to stop, but he doesn't.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm only waiting for the next person to leave. That's what I meant. When I asked if you were angry. That's what I wanted to know."

"What do you want me to say?" Kira's voice is suddenly loud, sharp like it was at breakfast. "That I'm angry at Sisko for walking with the Prophets and leaving me to pick up the pieces here? That I'm angry at Odo for trying to help his entire race improve themselves instead of sticking around to _hold hands_ with me?"

"That _I'm_ angry at Miles for going to Earth to spend more time with his family." Bashir snaps back. "That I'm angry at Garak for going back to rebuild his planet. That I'm angry at Jadzia for _dying_." His voice catches, and he looks down at his hands. "That I'm _angry_ at Jadzia for making me find a way for her to have a baby with her husband, then hugging me and going off to die."

The hum of the station is loud in his ears, and he can hear some mechanism clicking somewhere. And, after a while, the sound of Kira standing, opening a cabinet, and sitting next to him with two glasses. She takes his bottle and opens it with a startling _pop_ before filling both glasses and holding one up.

"A toast," she says. "To being left behind."

Bashir looks at her for a long moment before picking up his glass. "To being left behind, but still having one friend left to turn to."

She smiles, and they click their glasses together.

* * *

She wakes up with Bashir's head on her shoulder. Still sitting on the couch. Her arm around his shoulder. The way she used to sleep with some of her closest friends in the Resistance when the nights were cold.

Back then she hadn't known that there would still be cold nights on an environmentally controlled station.

She doesn't quite remember how they got this way. Just that they'd both been talking until their throats were sore, and they still had more to say when sleep finally overtook them. The last thing she remembers is seeing Bashir drifting off with his head leaned awkwardly on the back of the couch. He must have moved in the night.

Or. Morning. What the hell time is it?

Her commbadge tweets as if in answer, and Bashir stirs.

"Kira here."

Bashir looks up at her with a comically startled expression that reminds her of what he looked like the first time they met.

"Um, Colonel?" The new security chief. "The meeting you--"

"Yes... Yes. I'm on my way. Kira out."

"What time is it?" Bashir asks blearily, still trying to blink himself awake.

Kira sits up straight, stretching her back. "My meeting was at oh-seven-hundred, so... Computer, time."

" _Oh-seven-forty._ "

"Damn," Bashir mutters. "Nurse Jerika has probably sent out a search party for me. I'm never this late. Mind if I use your comm?"

"Go ahead." She watches Bashir stand, shamelessly taking her time. "But one more thing, Doctor."

He looks at her, his eyebrows raised.

"Would you like to have dinner tonight? Catch up a bit more?"

Bashir smiles a wide, genuine smile. "I'd love to. You'd be amazed at how much gossip a chief medical officer is privy to."

"I can't wait," Kira says, laughing. She had almost forgotten how nice it was not to be alone.

But she's beginning to remember.


End file.
